Deante L. Brown, 26, of Detroit was arrested at a Southfield hotel. He is a convicted carjacker who fled on parole.

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Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

This is the Backpage.com ad that led authorities to a Southfield hotel, where they arrested a woman and a man accused of prostituting her. / FBI

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Another prostitution case allegedly involving the website Backpage.com has surfaced in federal court in Detroit, in which a woman claims she was forced to have sex 10 times in one day and given crack cocaine to go through with it.

What led authorities to the woman at a Southfield hotel, records show, was this ad on Backpage.com:

“My name is April. I am a petite French red-haired vixen. All I want is to make your every dream come true,” read the ad, which also included a phone number and the location of 9 Mile Road and Telegraph.

“April” turned out to be an alias for a former Eastern Michigan University teaching student who developed a blood disorder that resulted in her losing multiple fingers, court records show. After the amputation, she became addicted to pain-killers, heroin and crack cocaine and turned to prostitution because she believed she had “no place to go and no one to turn to for help,” according to court records.

According to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, the man who prostituted her through the online ad was 26-year-old Detroiter Deante L. Brown, a convicted carjacker who fled while out on parole and remained missing for the last two years. He appeared today in federal court in downtown Detroit and consented to detention.

Brown’s lawyer, Ronnie Cromer, told the Free Press today that he had not yet received any of the government’s evidence in the case.

“However, I can say that this case absolutely is not similar in any regard to the young ladies that were held against their will in Cleveland,” Cromer said in a text message to the Free Press. He was referring to the three Cleveland kidnapping victims who were rescued earlier this month after being held captive for 10 years. He declined to comment further.

Here, according to court records, is what led authorities to Brown:

On Tuesday, an undercover agent with the FBI-run Southeast Michigan Crimes Against Children Task Force (SEMCAC) went to the Victory Inn hotel in Southfield after responding to the ad featuring April. The agent met April in a room, where Brown eventually showed up. April told him she had a client. Brown left and planned to return with two more women, “Lexi and Chelsea.” While in the room, April told the undercover agent that “there is a large group of people living at the hotel that are into prostitution and narcotics trafficking.”

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Moments later, the agent gave the signal, and a team of officers moved in and took April into custody, along with Brown, who was arrested while walking around the hotel.

At the Southfield Police Department, April told officers that she had been working for a man she knew only as “Blackface,” who turned out to be Brown. She said that “Blackface demanded that she begin working as a prostitute for him,” set up her dates, advertised her on Backpage.com and kept most of her money.

On the day of the bust, April told officers, she had at least 10 sex dates, and she said that for the last few days, the man had scheduled dates for her all throughout the night and did not allow her to sleep.

“She stated that he would not allow her to eat, but would give her one dime bag of crack cocaine per date. She stated that she needed the crack cocaine to go through with the date,” the complaint read.

“Backpage really isn’t to blame. ... It’s the exploiters out there who are taking advantage of the minors and these females,” said Edward Price, an FBI officer with the task force. He noted that several media outlets run adult material and escort ads, which are not illegal.

Backpage.com has come under fire in recent years for running escort ads that sometimes led to violent crimes and child prostitution. For example, in December 2011, three Detroit women who were found dead in the trunks of cars had ties to Backpage.com.

In Florida, a couple were charged in February with prostituting minors on Backpage.com. And in Washington state in March, another man was charged with advertising minors for sex through the site.

Backpage.com repeatedly has stressed that it cooperates fully with authorities and is committed to keeping predators off its site.

The FBI, meanwhile, has pledged to continue scrutinizing the Internet for illegal behavior.

“Protecting young women and children from a dangerous and predatory environment is a high priority for the FBI,” agency spokesman Simon Shaykhet said. “Through the SEMCAC Task Force, we remain committed to ensuring the safety of young people and pursuing and prosecuting those who target vulnerable victims through the Internet.”